


what the cards show

by unicyclehippo



Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [19]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, absolute mayhem of tarot reading im very sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21917443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: In which Jester learns tarot incredibly quickly because she makes up her own version of it, and the Traveller is there, and also she can't stop thinking about Beau. Also, new magic.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289
Comments: 6
Kudos: 219





	what the cards show

_Divination_

_Your magic and offering put you in contact with a god, or a god’s servants. You ask a single question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity to occur within seven days and get a truthful reply. This reply might be a short phrase, a cryptic rhyme, or an omen._

* * *

The cards are thicker than she thought they would be. Jester has spent a lot of the evening examining them: the set has seventy-eight cards made of a thick paper, with the edges lovingly gilded in sweeping gold and silver paint filagree, which is where a lot of the heft comes from, she thinks. And they’re _so_ beautiful and lovely and fascinating and shiny and - and a little creepy. Not creepy like the way bad things are creepy—like big spiders and rotting zombies and the low singing of petrified angels—but, well, these were _Molly’s_. That’s all.

Her fingers slip carefully over the cards. The hurried slap of card on blanket as she turns each card over in quick succession slows. Stops.

_Learning a new game, are we?_

‘It’s not a game. It’s tarot reading. Do you know what tarot are? They’re like, so cool, and Molly read my future the first time we ever met, remember?’

_Of course. You drew that picture of him for me. With the serpent and moon and shadow. You drew the serpent choking on the moon, didn't you?_

‘Yeah!’

The Traveller laughs quietly, delightedly, like that silly little drawing had been the best thing he had ever seen. Then, _Curious, isn’t it? I wonder if the fortune was even for you._

Jester glances up with a frown at her friend, her first friend. His green cloak sweeps at the floor but doesn’t quite touch, or fades away before it can. His smile is ever-present but one edge folds in like a pressed accordian into a lop-sided and thoughtful, almost teasing, smirk.

‘What do you mean? Of course it was for me, he was looking at me, and we killed that massive snake and—‘

_Tarot show the future, no? That is what you just told me._

‘Well...yes.’

_So it might not have been talking about that serpent,_ his left hand folds out and a small green snake curls around his fingers. _B_ _ut another._

Jester’s brow crinkles. Then, with a gasp, ‘Uka’toa!’

_Uka’toa_ , comes the Traveller’s echoed whisper, and around his other hand suddenly curls a much larger serpent. Slow and malicious.

‘And the moon? Well, that's probably Yasha because it goes away and comes back again, that makes so much sense, you're _so smart,_ Traveller! We are so smart!' She jumps to her feet excitedly, pointing at him. Then flops back onto the bed, tail curling almost into a question mark behind her head. 'But what about the shadow? That could make be Fjord as well, his snake doesn’t seem like the nicest perso—thing—being.’

_No. No it does not. Is that what shadows mean? Things that are bad?_

Jester shuffles back on the bed, rests back against the wall as she considers that. ‘I guess not. When I give Nott your blessing that’s all shadowy and stuff but that’s not _bad_.’ She smiles up at her friend, who bows, visible pale hand twisting in a dramatic flourish. Jester giggles. ‘Okay, so, this is great! So if the shadow card isn’t about anything that is _bad_ , then...’ She thumbs through the cards to find the Shadow, great roiling clouds of black—no, climbing pillars like smoke—no, an inky black veil. There’s something hidden behind the shadow in the image but when Jester stares too hard, it doesn’t become clearer, it just hurts her head. ‘Something hidden?’

_That would be my guess. Can the meaning of the card change?_

‘I...think so.’

_Hmm. How do we figure out what it means?_

Jester scrunches up her lips, an accordion press into a pout. She can’t see it herself, nor would anyone know for they have rarely seen the man, the myth, the legend himself, but the expression is remarkably similar to that which the Traveller wears as well, as the two of them begin to pour over the cards.

‘Will you help me?’

_Of course,_ he says without pause. Then, _You know, I don’t think we’ve ever tried to divine before. Would you like to try?_

Jester bites at her lip. She’s aware that it isn’t a simple spell, that it would take a bit out of her, but she isn’t fighting anything tonight so... She nearly pounces on the cards, scoops them back into her deck and meets the Traveller’s eyes—well, the deep shadow beneath his cowl—with a wide and wicked grin, nearly shivering with excitement. She bounces on the bed.

‘Yeah! Let’s do it!’

* * *

First there is the presentation and the preparation, and then comes the spell itself. Jester rolls out the mat Beau uses sometimes to meditate—hopes that’s okay—over the small desk in the room and settles in her chair, cards tucked protectively into her chest.

‘Okay, okay, okay, do I ask the question first? Or do I—‘ She gestures toward the mat, the table, the little pools of silver jewellery she has laid out in an attempt to mimic Molly’s whole situation. The incense that has begun to burn and curl into tiny white pillars of smoke.

_Hmm. The question, I think. So the cards know your intent._

‘Do I have to say it out loud?’

_I don’t know. What do you think?_

Jester worries at her bottom lip with sharp teeth. Her tail flicks. ‘I think so.’

_Alright. Ask away. One question. Let’s try...something immediate._

‘Like what? The others are going to fight tomorrow night, should I ask about that?’

_You could._

‘Or, or—‘ Jester grazes against a thought, shakes it away. Realises too late that she has done so in front of the one person who knows her the best. When she opens her eyes from her instant wince, the Traveller is watching her intently. She can _feel_ it, feel the way his brow nocks into place, into an arch of keen interest.

_Hello. What was_ that _?_

‘Nothing!’

_Keeping secrets? We've never done that before._

'No! I'm not - it's just, it's nothing,'

_Jester..._

‘I just—it’s something that’s already _happened_ so it’s not about the _future,_ so,’

_If you want to talk about it_ , he offers. _It doesn’t have to be the question you ask,_ he assures her, silky smooth. She knows he’s lying, but...

The incense billows out, wafting in white-smoke columns and pouring over the edges of the bowls. The scent is cloying, sweet but overpowering, like flowers have been pushed right up into her nostrils. It makes the air a little hazy around her as it curls and coils, and Jester imagines tiger-striped cats and fey creatures stalking through the there-but-not-there smoke.

‘I talked to Beau today,’ she tells the Traveller, who nods encouragingly. Arranges himself in a listening pose on the end of the bed. ‘And I _asked_ her if she’d been avoiding me and she says she _hasn’t_ even though it feels like she _has_ been, but when I asked she said she, um, trusts my judgement even though I didn’t save her and I think I really screwed up because I told her that she nearly died and I guess she didn’t realise that and now I’m worried all over again that now she’ll, she’ll be angry or worse.’

_Worse?_

‘Upset,’ Jester tells him, like it’s obvious, because it kinda is. Beau thinking she doesn’t care... Jester swallows hard.

_So what would be your question?_

‘Um.’ Jester pulls her lips over her teeth, presses them flat as she tries to think of the right question. ‘I guess... Well, I also kind of told her that I had been talking to her dad and I really don’t think she liked that at all,’ Jester says with an uncomfortable laugh, scratches at her throat as she feels the prickling itch of discomfort. ‘Okay okay okay, so, is Beau angry with me? No—wait—what is going on with Beau right now? That’s a better one,’ she tells the Traveller, ‘because I get to know more about what she’s thinking about and what she's doing, not just if she’s upset.’ She taps her temple. ‘Smart.’

_Indeed. I picked you for a reason,_

‘Because I’m funny and cute.’

_That_ , he agrees with a chuckle, _and so much more._

The incense billows like the Traveller’s cloak, shifting in a breeze Jester can’t feel. It swirls around her and close and where it touches she can feel it. She’s never felt what sweetness could feel like but now it’s like she can _taste_ it on her _arms—_ sweet and woody like cinnamon or chestnuts or wood chips—likeher senses have all been rearranged. And when she glides her fingers over the cards, she doesn’t feel them but instead is almost seeing them, the whorls and eddys of their anchoring in fate and fortune.

The first one that stands out to her, a subtle thing, the smallest shift in sensation, is coarse like rope and Jester feels her heart clench. She doesn’t want to pull it, actually, because it hadn’t occurred to her until now that maybe, maybe she doesn’t want to know, maybe what she finds out isn’t going to be good at all.

Her fingers close on the card.

Jester isn’t sure that she has entire control of this anymore.

The card is placed onto the mat, and Jester blinks. Leans over it. Tarot don’t have obvious meanings, always, so maybe—maybe this isn’t so bad? She brushes her fingers over the filagree and examines the scene, the rather androgynous figure hanging by the foot from a gnarled tree. There’s something about the face, though, something familiar. _V_ _ery_ familiar. Jester drags her fingers over it and sees—just for a moment—a flurry of images: Beau handing the knife of locking off to Nott and running back in for Fjord; Beau moving up to a blank-eyed Yasha; Beau stepping in front of Jester again, and again; Beau nodding to Yasha; Beau pushing Jester’s healing toward Fjord; Beau standing in front of an unfamiliar building with a tall redwood door, eyes staring, jaw clenched, hand shaking as she closes it into a fist and knocks.

The images fade, receding with the incense that billows out as Jester sighs. When she looks again, Jester sees only a man hanging from a tree and he wears a face that looks nothing like Beau’s.

Jester’s hand moves to the next card. She has enough time to think maybe this was a _really bad idea_ to try alone before her fingertips close on another. This one fills her senses with the tang of iron, the sharp of a blade threatening to slice at her fingertips. She can’t drop it fast enough and it lands overlapping with the hanging man.

Nine of Swords.

_What does this one mean?_ the Traveller asks, voice curling into the shell of her ear as he peers over her shoulder. His hand moves with her hand, a verdant echo, over the card. His other rests on her opposite shoulder, comforting. Warming the diamond freckles.

‘I don’t know.’

_What do you_ think _it means?_

‘Well. There’s nine swords so...maybe it just means us,’ she offers, a little hesitantly. Despite how funny it always is, the number isn’t _really_ their name but she doesn’t think that it discludes it.

_Perhaps. But the card isn’t just swords, Jester. Look again._

She does. The cards background has been painted a deep purple and red, like sunset. Standing upon a bridge is a young woman, or someone wearing a dress, and the nine swords stand four to each side of them, tips pointed down. The ninth hangs directly above the figures head, its tip dangerously close to piercing their scalp.

As Jester watches, the prying, curious incense drifts across the table. Cloaks the silvers and the candles and the bowls with their curled packets of incense slowly turning to so much ash, orange embers wandering along the curls and frills of long dried flowers. And there on the bridge, Jester sees Beau in a yellow dress. To her left, she sees the jagged, rusted edge of Skin Gouger, held in a big hand. She sees a winding road and red eyes black with blood and a glaive. She sees a rising tower, fractured halfway up its height like a broken blade, fragments shattering out from it, and upon its hilt at the very top is a familiar twelve-sided shape embedded like a shining jewel. And closest to Beau’s left, Jester sees a moustached man whose features are largely in the haze. He holds his sword tight in his arms, cradling it; the edges of it slice into soft fingers and he bleeds freely from the cuts, smiling all the while. To the right, Jester sees four bladed knights—the steel plated knight who had stood at Dwendal’s shoulder, gleaming armour and no eyes within the slit of the helmet. Then Dairon in their armour of beaded brocade, eyes closed. Too pale, and the sunset bleeds redder behind her. Next, the pale, dark-haired man in Ikithon’s research chamber, his smile a cruel slice across his face like a wound. And fourth, another faceless and helmeted knight whose shoulders are spiked in the cruel lines of the Kryn armour.

And above Beau’s head—no. Beau is holding the threatening sword now, her expression thoughtful and pained and stern. She holds her sword not by the hilt but by the blade and rivulets of red course down her arms, tracing the wired muscles and pooling into the crook of bent elbows. So much like her father. But unlike him, Jester knows Beau can see it. See the wounds, the injury, and holds it all the more tightly.

_Well?_

‘I don’t know,’ Jester whispers again. ‘But I don’t think it’s good.’

The Traveller’s hand moves over her shoulder in a comforting circle, a whisper of a touch. _Keep going_ , he urges her.

‘This is _not_ what I thought it would be like, this is really _shitty_ ,’ Jester announces, aiming for cranky. This is _not_ how her first reading should have gone. It doesn’t quite hit cranky, though, because a deep sadness pulls it down. If this is real, if this is right, if Beau really is thinking all of this stuff, how come she didn’t know?

The next card feels different immediately. There is a weight to it that Jester cannot fathom, not that it resists being pulled exactly but like she can’t quite get a grip on it. Like trying to excavate something well and truly buried from the hard-packed ground and she has only a small fragment upon which to pull.

A naked woman. Wreathed, her and the card both, in leaves and flowers of such delicate and tender care in their painting that Jester feels the breath rush from her. There is something tender and beautiful and private about it, sacred really, and Jester feels her skin prickle all over.

_The World_ , the Traveller whispers. _The keeper of dreams, of plans, of hopes. What might your Beauregard be looking for, I wonder? Quickly now, pull the others,_ he tells her, and there is something gleaming, something golden in his voice, like joy like delight that sends Jester’s fingers dancing.

One, two, three cards.

And then her hands fold up the rest and set them aside and she realises that is it, the extent of the reading, the extent of the divination, once these cards are set and seen.

The three lay below the woman, the world, connected to her.

The Fool. That one Jester knows. Molly had called it The Jester once and when he had, Jester had planted her hands on the table and told him, delighted, ‘That’s my name!’ Molly had just laughed.

The High Priestess.

The King of Cups.

_My my, how_ fascinating. The Traveller seems as absorbed in the reading as Jester is, fingers tracing different cards, and for a moment as the magic lingers and connects them, she can feel him doing it, as though she is in two places at once, as though she is a part of him and him her.

‘So you _do_ know tarot,’ she accuses.

The Traveller chuckles. _Maybe a little,_ he admits _. What do you think they mean?_

‘You’re a _god_ , you tell me!’

_That isn’t how this works, I’m afraid._

Jester pouts. Folds her arms on the edge of the table and drops her chin down onto them, staring forward at the tiered reading.

‘The Fool,’

_The Jester,_ the Traveller murmurs, laughter on his tongue like an ember.

Jester rolls her eyes. ‘Tarot isn’t about obvious stuff,’ she tells him firmly. ‘The Fool, Molly told me about this one a lot. It’s all about new beginnings and faith and stuff.’ She moves on without touching it, though she feels the Traveller’s attention linger—on her or on the card she isn’t quite sure. She drags her fingers over the Priestess, and this one really does look like Beau—the blue draping robes look very similar to the monk robes, as though the painter based them on the Cobalt Soul originally—and she picks it up. ‘Secrets,’ she says, and the voice is her own but the words are not. ‘And insight and skill and wisdom.’

_That certainly sounds like your Beauregard,_ the Traveller agrees. _And the King?_

She hadn’t gotten to the suit cards with Molly, isn’t so familiar with them, but as she examines the card, she can hear the water all around her and see the way the diamond cast light reflects off the endless expanse of blue, and feel the calm that comes with it. For a moment she is afraid that there is something beyond it, a gathering storm to threaten it, and without being touched the card almost seems to turn, but then it settles again and all is peaceful once more. The King isn’t Dwendal, and Jester wonders again who might have painted these cards. At first, the face belongs simply to some crowned man but when Jester blinks the curling mist from the waters surface has disguised him and when it parts Jester sees Dairon again. Hale and healthy, stern yet direct. Proud. Forceful as ever. She holds in one hand a scroll and in the other, a cup. And in the mirrored reflection of that face in the cup, Jester sees Beau. Serene and stern. Eyes of the clearest blue.

As quick as the incense smoke had risen and over taken Jester’s senses, it leaves her. She comes back to the empty room and the flat cards, painted prettily but largely common. Her thoughts swirl in her mind and refuse to settle, except for a moment when the Traveller rests his hand on her head and, with an apologetic smile, fades.

‘You’re not even going to stay and talk about it? I just divined for the first time and you leave? You _motherfucker_!’

She is left with his laughter and the cards, and Jester packs them up before anyone can come into the room—Nott with her questions, or Yasha to read, or _Beau_ —and worries at her bottom lip, and at the new images that won’t leave her.

**Author's Note:**

> hi im unicyclehippo on tumblr as well, feel free to swing on by & say hi or send me a prompt x


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